Istwa Nou

Littleton Waller subdued the North and the Artibonite in three months with Cole and Smedley Butler under him. He was quick, practical and entirely without diplomacy, which served in the field and failed in Port-au-Prince. Danache, who spoke for the politicians, called him a man who had never learned courtesy and accused him of lynching Black men at home. He quoted a letter in which Waller told Dartiguenave that he was president only because the Americans were there, and that if he kept undercutting the brigade Waller would recommend pulling the marines out for a single day. As commandant of the Gendarmerie, Butler said Haiti had two classes, the one percent in shoes and the ninety nine percent without them. He called the second group the kindest people he had ever met and blamed every atrocity on the first. Waller went home in December 1916 and Cole replaced him. Butler stayed until March 1918, training gendarmes and driving the road programme that produced the worst abuses of the occupation. Colonel John Russell took over in December 1917 and ran the occupation for thirteen years.